Numbers 15:31

31 For he hath contemned the word of the Lord, and made void his precept: therefore shall he be destroyed, and shall bear his iniquity.

Numbers 15:31 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 15:31

Because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath
broken his commandment
That is, has broken it through contempt of it, despising it as a command of God, paying no regard to it as a law of his; otherwise such who sin ignorantly break the commandment of God:

that soul shall be utterly cut off;
or "in cutting off shall be cut off" ^F21; most certainly cut off and entirely ruined and destroyed in this world and in that to come, as the Targum of Jonathan; and Maimonides ^F23 understands it of such a cutting off, that the soul itself perishes and is no more; but such annihilation the Scripture nowhere gives us any reason to believe:

his iniquity [shall be] upon him;
the punishment of it, no atonement being made for it by sacrifice; it shall be upon him and him only, or be "in him" ^F24, not repented of and not forgiven.

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FOOTNOTES:

F21 (trkt trkh) "excidendo excidetur", Pagninus, Montanus, Drusius.
F23 In Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 11. sect. 1.
F24 (hb) "in ea", Montanus, Junins & Tremellius, Drusius; "in ipso", Piscator.

Numbers 15:31 In-Context

29 The same law shall be for all that sin by ignorance, whether they be natives or strangers.

30 But the soul that committeth any thing through pride, whether he be born in the land or a stranger (because he hath been rebellious against the Lord) shall be cut off from among his people:

31 For he hath contemned the word of the Lord, and made void his precept: therefore shall he be destroyed, and shall bear his iniquity.

32 And it came to pass, when the children of Israel were in the wilderness, and had found a man gathering sticks on the sabbath day,

33 That they brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole multitude.